Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Robert Monie <bobm20001@yahoo.com>]

Australian farmer and landscaper P. A. Yeomans had a theory back in the 1950s of

how humus could be formed. In his "Keyline System," he recommended "changing the subsoil conditions to better suit the aerobic soil organisms' conversion of sub-soil into topsoil."  He pointed out that "the organisms need warmth, space for air and moisture, plus a plentiful supply of high protein food."  This emphasis on the singlular role of protein (probably what we today would call glycoproteins) rather than carbohydrates in creating topsoil anticipates the insights of Dr. Melendrez today. Yeomans considered the "root systems of pasture legumes" the preferred food source for the microbes that produce humus. He stated that "for rapid soil growth some of the roots [of these pasture legumes] must die."  His method was to periodically "use stock to quickly eat down most of the aboveground parts of the plant," preferably at flowering time just when the legume roots have turned from white to brown and also to disturb the roots themselves, to help break them down.

 

For Yeomans, humus was mainly the product of the right microbes (what we would today identify as the Glomus family?) feeding on the right decaying and partially disturbed legume roots at the right time, just after the they began to flower. The process was optimized by letting the animals chew up or claw up the pasture just enough to "prepare" the root feast for the microbes.

 

See http://www.keyline.com.au/detailol.htm for more.     

 

Yeomans' out of print books sell on amazon.com for $100.00 or more, when you can find them. I suspect that Yeomans', like Hugh Corley and the other English ley and

pasture farmers, is one more nearly-forgotten master that we can learn from today in

our attempts to regrow lost topsoil.

 

Bob Monie

New Orleans/River Ridge, LA

Zone 8